Anyone familiar with Tribulation's excellent The Horror record may as well delete their brain-cache as the new album is almost nothing like it. Whilst The Horror was a crusty, energy driven death metal number with a few black metal bells and whistles, The Formulas of Death has mutated into a highly dynamic and diverse mix of black and death metal that's quite progressive in nature, made even more eclectic by lengthy psychedelic soloing and clean passages and some surprising melodic harmonies. In fact the entire affair is so clever and intoxicating that the 75 minute duration will positively fly by and still leave you craving more. If you have any interest in black or death metal, or any kind of quality music, then you need this in your life as it's simply a brilliant piece of metal engineering. AOTY material.

Checked it out earlier today and although different to their earlier work it is a damn fine album. Will be seeing them on March 22 together with Alchemyst, Ketzer and Venenum and will be sure to pick up a copy of the album then.

This is an incredible record. They really understand how to evolve a sound. I always found The Horror had a lot of black metal in, and on this I'd say it could even be more black metal oriented than it is death. Hugely dynamic, constantly shifting songwriting ranging from the crusty death metal of The Horror to some pretty avant-garde, or at least very non-standard, black metal riffing and lots of psychedelic clean passages and soloing. It pretty much has everything, on top of the overall great sound, guitar tone and production.

This is an incredible record. They really understand how to evolve a sound. I always found The Horror had a lot of black metal in, and on this I'd say it could even be more black metal oriented than it is death. Hugely dynamic, constantly shifting songwriting ranging from the crusty death metal of The Horror to some pretty avant-garde, or at least very non-standard, black metal riffing and lots of psychedelic clean passages and soloing. It pretty much has everything, on top of the overall great sound, guitar tone and production.

I listened to it late last night and wasn't impressed at all. I just re-listened to it today and found it significantly better, but nothing 9 worthy. Maybe it will keep getting better with every listen

This is an incredible record. They really understand how to evolve a sound. I always found The Horror had a lot of black metal in, and on this I'd say it could even be more black metal oriented than it is death. Hugely dynamic, constantly shifting songwriting ranging from the crusty death metal of The Horror to some pretty avant-garde, or at least very non-standard, black metal riffing and lots of psychedelic clean passages and soloing. It pretty much has everything, on top of the overall great sound, guitar tone and production.

This.

This albums is amazing. I've been listening to it almost constantly. It's just great stuff, on every level. Songwriting, production, riff lexicon, etc.

Typical with most prog-death, most of the songs overstay their welcome and are comparably somewhat generic at points. Not that this is indicative of my own rating, but I think the 7.9 rating reflects the boredom of some listeners. It's so easy to see why the rating would be low when you look at the flavors of the week Metal Storm users enjoy.

At first I didn't like it too much because the interludes and abstract parts killed it for me (I have a low attention span), but after listening to is many times I enjoy it way more. Also, its just awesome to see musicians do what they want, make their sound stand out from all the other osdm revival bands and still kick ass.

This is an incredible record. They really understand how to evolve a sound. I always found The Horror had a lot of black metal in, and on this I'd say it could even be more black metal oriented than it is death. Hugely dynamic, constantly shifting songwriting ranging from the crusty death metal of The Horror to some pretty avant-garde, or at least very non-standard, black metal riffing and lots of psychedelic clean passages and soloing. It pretty much has everything, on top of the overall great sound, guitar tone and production.

Black metal? Clearly, more of a Thrash Death record with little prog tendencies. It might be having some dark passages that is reminiscent of black metal albeit with the absence of blastbeats or palm-muted riffing, sounds nothing like any BM band I've heard. The closest sounding band to this i can think of is Sylosis.

Black metal? Clearly, more of a Thrash Death record with little prog tendencies. It might be having some dark passages that is reminiscent of black metal albeit with the absence of blastbeats or palm-muted riffing, sounds nothing like any BM band I've heard. The closest sounding band to this i can think of is Sylosis.

Nah, I don't hear much, if any thrash in this. It's been scaled back a lot from what was in The Horror. Definitely a prog drenched black metal album to my ears. The melodies and progressions don't really lend themselves to thrash anymore, and the structure and pacing certainly doesn't.

If you want something more similar check out Rudra's last album. Quite similar, only minus the proggy, psychedelic elements. It borders on thrash but I would still not call it a thrash record either.

Black metal? Clearly, more of a Thrash Death record with little prog tendencies. It might be having some dark passages that is reminiscent of black metal albeit with the absence of blastbeats or palm-muted riffing, sounds nothing like any BM band I've heard. The closest sounding band to this i can think of is Sylosis.

Nah, I don't hear much, if any thrash in this. It's been scaled back a lot from what was in The Horror. Definitely a prog drenched black metal album to my ears. The melodies and progressions don't really lend themselves to thrash anymore.

Maybe the black metal tendencies have crept in this record without their intention of its creators. I've checked MA,their official FB page and they have no label of black anywhere else. I will say it builds an Blackened sound to an extent, but only on an influence level and not enough to label them Black.

Maybe the black metal tendencies have crept in this record without their intention of its creators. I've checked MA,their official FB page and they have no label of black anywhere else. I will say it builds an Blackened sound to an extent, but only on an influence level and not enough to label them Black.

Well most places still cite them as a death metal band, and this is definitely not death metal Going through the reviews on Metal Archives the genre seems to be undecided by people.

Black metal? Clearly, more of a Thrash Death record with little prog tendencies. It might be having some dark passages that is reminiscent of black metal albeit with the absence of blastbeats or palm-muted riffing, sounds nothing like any BM band I've heard. The closest sounding band to this i can think of is Sylosis.

I'd say it's thrashened black If this sounded like Sylosis I'd be all over this, but this sounds like Watain to me - at least after skimming through a couple of songs...

Black metal? Clearly, more of a Thrash Death record with little prog tendencies. It might be having some dark passages that is reminiscent of black metal albeit with the absence of blastbeats or palm-muted riffing, sounds nothing like any BM band I've heard. The closest sounding band to this i can think of is Sylosis.

I'd say it's thrashened black If this sounded like Sylosis I'd be all over this, but this sounds like Watain to me - at least after skimming through a couple of songs...

Ya something like that. Pretty unique black metal (From what Joe and Marcel have been preaching me on genre labeling, I might agree on some level cause I truly am very bad at labeling genres especially for something like this) if you ask me since everything except the riffs has vibes of other genres here.

This is better than "The Horror", which was good but THIS is a masterpiece for death, black or prog metal. Whatever you wanna call it, labels really don't matter. It's good to see a band that doesn't care to conform to a single sub genre. I saw them with In Solitude and Watain earlier in the month and I can say with full confidence that these guys KILL live. Along with the aforementioned In Solitude, these guys are the best new band going. I hope to see them again in the future.

As i listen to this album it tends to sound like the death metal version of Antichrist's "Forbidden World"... it surely has some interesting moments, it's just the production is not so good and so i have to listen to the album really carefully each time...

Well final opinion: this is awesome! it would easily be a masterpiece if it didnt have so much "dead time" (interludes etc)... spectres and wanderer in the darkness are awesome songs! so do almost all the others (exept the boring suspiria de profundis)

Over the moon these guys were announced for Temples. They've gone all out for amazing death metal this year. Hopefully they'll play a lot off this record. Easily in the top 3 deathy albums of the last few years.

Well fuck this has grown on me like hell. I've been revisiting stuff from a few years ago and I'm very pleased to have gone back to Tribulation. Moving on to their 2015 release now and I'm adequately pumped.

Well fuck this has grown on me like hell. I've been revisiting stuff from a few years ago and I'm very pleased to have gone back to Tribulation. Moving on to their 2015 release now and I'm adequately pumped.

This is one of those moments in which I look back at younger Alex and feel nothing but shame. I just got through Melancholia on TGotN and I could not be more impressed. This is like Christmas for death metal right now.

This is one of those moments in which I look back at younger Alex and feel nothing but shame. I just got through Melancholia on TGotN and I could not be more impressed. This is like Christmas for death metal right now.

Next: do the same also for execration.
I also had a similar situation with this record tbh. Initially was not much impressed. Only after Morbus Chron I looked back at this and was blown away.
Still not heard the new record

Took me a very long time to warm up to this album. Great riffs, production, and songwriting, but it would have benefited from being shorter. I do have to give props to this band for their experimentation.